Meet Flyborg

You may not be able to see it, but that fly isn’t a fly, and he doesn’t have a human head squeaking “He’p me! He’p me!” either. No, he’s a flyborg, and he’s probably the future of spying, using robots to find people, and generally ushering in the weirdness that is the world of tomorrow.

The fly is strapped into what amounts to an insect VR rig; it’s tethered down, and surrounded by screens that flash lights to stimulate its visual system; i.e. show it obstacles. This also happens to look like what you see when you trip some serious balls, but we’re getting off topic. The fly, of course, goes around them, or at least thinks it is. Instead, a high-speed visual system is recording the fly’s movements and translating that out into instructions for a robot, who in turn navigates the obstacle course. How effective is this annoying household pest at controlling robots? See for yourself:

Yeah, guys, let’s not arm this robot, mkay?

[ via IEEE Spectrum ]